In this Christmas comicBlack Hat is at it again, freaking out a young child, by replacing the eight reindeer of Santa's sleigh with a single spider-legged reindeer, thus with eight legs. He considers this "more authentic" because Santa Claus is based on Odin (among many other things), the chief god of Norse mythology. On the pagan holiday of Yule, Odin was said to ride his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, across the land. Children would leave one of their boots out and fill it with hay for Sleipnir to eat, then Odin would refill the boot with gifts. This predates the Christmas tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney.

The traditional interpretation of the horse with eight legs is a normal equine body, with a pair of identical legs where each leg of a normal horse is. As such, Sleipnir looks majestic and not entirely unnatural. Black Hat's interpretation is to use the body plan of a spider. The result of this is to make a chimaera that is both creepy and terrifying,[citation needed] particularly to those with arachnophobia (the quite common fear of spiders).

The title text is a parody of two lines from the poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas", "And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof / The prancing and pawing of each little hoof."

The lines are changed to what they could have been if Santa had a spider-legged reindeer - the sound of "eight tarsal claws", referring to the small pair (or triplet) of claws at the end of each of a spider's eight legs. These claws allow them to hold onto objects, including their own web. However, as such an eight-legged spider would have 16 or 24 claws, the text is slightly incorrect.

[Black Hat and a boy, with a lot of dark hair, are standing to the right of an empty sleigh pulled by a reindeer with eight spider-like legs. Black Hat has raised one arm towards the reindeer and the boy has his arms out to either side.]

Black Hat: In earlier Norse myths, the eight reindeer were actually one steed with eight legs.

Discussion

Captcha does not work on mobile browser. (Android Firefox) Had to switch over to laptop to make edit. Also, it's two words, not one as the thing above implies ("To help protect against automated edit spam, please type the word you see in the box below:") ~Dartania 162.158.74.141 14:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

This post was made with Firefox on Android. Are you sure you didn’t just get a difficult CAPTCHA? 108.162.216.214 14:32, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Seems more likely to be a few lines later, “And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof / The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.” 162.158.62.249 15:19, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

To pick nits, an octopus has eight arms and no tentacles. A squid has eight arms plus two tentacles. --162.158.34.94 15:21, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

To pick further nits, some instead argue that octopuses have 6 arms and 2 legs. Hppavilion1 (talk) 20:14, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Is the octopus tentacle comment adding anything? I believe octopodophobia is substantially rarer than arachnophobia (to the extent that it doesn't seem to have an official name); Cthulhu aside, I suspect a deer with octopus tentacles would mostly look weird (or comical) rather than scary. To most, I suspect octopus tentacles are only scary if you're on a ship being attacked by a kraken or if you're a diver and one is playfully tugging on your respirator. Of course, I speak as an arachnophobe who cringed when I saw this comic... Fluppeteer (talk) 15:39, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the link provided above says that spiders have only two (or, rarely, three) tarsal claws per leg. This site (http://www.findaspider.org.au/info/glossary.htm) mentions that each leg has these claws, and some spiders have a median claw behind their main pair. This refers to the third claw spiders sometimes have, mentioned in the previous link. 01:37, 24 December 2016 (UTC)Count Schlick (talk)

Ah...that makes more sense. OK - so "the sound of sixteen to twenty four tarsal claws"...unless the reinspiders are standing on tippy-toes? 162.158.69.39 01:55, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps a nod to Love Actually - one of the holiday season's more popular movies - which notes, "Eight is a lot of legs." ~Dave 162.158.202.148 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)